Every winter, when the snowflakes begin to fall, I would love to bring tidings of good cheer to my fellow townspeople but I can’t, because so many of their sidewalks are buried under snow. As the city of Ann Arbor, Mich., reminds its citizens, “Clearing snow and ice from sidewalks should simply be looked upon […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Stay with me
After 40 years, area tourism promoters still don’t have a compelling answer to the central question of their trade, which is, How ya gonnna bed ’em down in Springfield, after they’ve seen the Tomb? As I noted back in April (“The Presidential museum turns five,” April 29), attendance at the Presidential museum even in the […]
Posted inOpinion
Markable authors
On Oct. 12, on what would have been the subject’s 100th birthday, a marker was unveiled at Second and Jackson streets, noting the once-presence nearby of the boyhood home of Robert S. Fitzgerald, the noted poet, teacher, and translator of the classics. (See “All is not well forever,” Nov. 19, 2009) Robert Fitzgerald was arguably […]
Posted inOpinion
Toward a farm-fresh food system
Readers of the brand new Illinois Times might not have learned learn much about who controlled the Illinois House, but we reported so diligently where they could buy farm-fresh eggs that it became a standing joke around the office. It was 1975. Anti-corporatism, pesticide paranoia and food faddism had come back into vogue. We joined […]
Posted inOpinion
Warrior days
It’s that time of year again, when youth gangs dressed improbably in bloomers and armed with basketballs rumble at the gym to defend the honor of the Red and Black or the Green and White – or, as in my case, the Blue and the Gold. In the mid-1960s I proudly, if ineptly, represented Washington […]
Posted inOpinion
Monument to a dead building
What, I wonder, is the overdue fine on a library lintel that was lost for 36 years? The carved stone lintel that stood atop the main entrance to the old library building had been salvaged when the building was demolished in 1974 and trucked to a storage yard at the state fairgrounds. There it sat […]
Posted inOpinion
The new Know Nothings
The late Daniel Moynihan, who represented New York in the upper chamber of Congress in the days when the U.S. still had senators, once observed that while everyone is entitled to his opinion, he is not entitled to his own facts. Nothing – not the bow ties, not the Ivy League education, not the erudition […]
Posted inOpinion
Dim reflections
It is always a relief to turn off the TV set and pick up a good book, and never more than after a political campaign season such as that just finished in Illinois. Indeed, reading is essential for anyone who wishes to understand the state’s politics. How much better than the blare and the rant […]
Posted inOpinion
‘A little bit of a challenge’
Like people, streets suffer midlife crises. MacArthur Boulevard between South Grand and Wabash has been going through one for years. The former West Grand Avenue, one of Springfield’s four grand avenues before it was renamed in 1942 for the general some regard as a military hero, once was the cool place to shop, to cruise, […]
Posted inOpinion
Green is as green does
A while back I remarked that Mayor Tim Davlin has his work cut out for him if he wants to see Springfield ranked as the top environmental city in the U.S. (“Greener than thou,” Sept. 16) Installing LED traffic lights reduces a municipal energy budget the way that ordering a Diet Coke with your double […]
Posted inOpinion
Wicked Springfield
“This book is not about Abraham Lincoln and his virtues,” announces Erika Holst in her introduction to Wicked Springfield: Crime, Corruption & Scandal during the Lincoln Era. “It is about Lincoln’s hometown and its vices.” Rather than the by-now familiar cast of supporting players in Abraham Lincoln’s drama of self-improvement, Holst introduces us to the […]
Posted inOpinion
What good are public libraries?
A library used to be one of the first things to be established by any town that wished to call itself advanced. Of late, spending on the library is one of the first things a town cuts back. Many a mayor faces fiscal dilemmas such as those that once prompted Springfield’s Mr. Davlin to muse […]
